


Part 4: Our Heroes Get Messy

by orphan_account



Series: A Good Idea [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Humor, Breaking and Entering, Drinking, Epic Bromance, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 01:11:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3338498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh dear, they’re really getting messed up now.  Awkward touchings ensue, terrible memories are only just avoided and a guardsman gets a little rained on.  A series of interludes between everyone's favourite ex-Templar and everyone's favourite Tevene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Part 4: Our Heroes Get Messy

“Jus’... put your hand on it.”

“No, I don’ wan’ to.” Cullen giggles, “This is weird.”

“Jus’ a fingertip!” Dorian slurs, very slightly, “Come on, iss not gonna hurt you.”

“Oh.” Cullen looks at Dorian, their faces only inches from each other. “Iss… warm.” He sits back on his haunches, looking around for his cup. “Why do I feel like I jus’ touched something much more personal than a hunk of wood?”

Dorian looks affronted, but his eyes are sparkling “Because you did.  It’s my staff, you untutored swineherd, not a hunk of wood!”

“Fair enough.” Cullen at least has the sense to look a little shamefaced, and then his expression changes to one of utter confusion, “Er… why was I touching it, again?”

“Because…” Dorian looks confused as well, but continues anyway “I wanted to illustrate a point.  And that point was… ah… oh yes, that magic can’t really hurt you if you understand it.” He looks superior, and then confused again. “Or maybe… that should be   _mages_ won’t really hurt you if you understand them.  But you know…” he waves his cup around, and a bit of mead spills out, “Mead-mind.”

Cullen frowns at him, thinking it through, which takes a long time.  At least, it feels like a long time. “That’s like everything.  Everyone.  And anyway, it’s a… what do you call it… an oversimplification.  Lots of things will hurt you without meaning to.  A horse will throw you with no malice intended.  Deathroot doesn’t mean to be poisonous.”

“Oh. Jus’... shut up.”

Cullen laughs, loud in the darkness.  They are still sitting in the alcove with the two barrels of mead, one now very much lighter than it was before.  Cullen knows, because he’s tried to lift it, at Dorian’s insistence.  There is also a sigil and two very rude (but very funny) poems written on the wall, and copious amounts of mead on the floor with them.  He turns mock-stern to Dorian, who is upending his cup into his mouth.  “Aah, stop sulking.  I understand what you mean, and I toast your noble sentiments.” He upends his own cup, then rises, quite unsteadily, to refill it.

Dorian holds his own cup up and waggles his eyebrows at Cullen.  “Be a dear.” He rubs a hand through his hair and watches as Cullen fills his cup again.  Despite the lesson, he has managed to only fill his own cup up once during the course of the evening.  When Cullen hands his cup back, now full to the brim, he says “I jus’ wanted you to understand it… magic... from our point of view.”

Cullen slides his backside down the wall, not trusting his sense of balance to manage the task alone.  “You think I haven’t tried?” He knits his brow, and takes a drink before expounding “Before the Kinloch Circle went to shit, Ulaleth used to tell me _all the time_ …”  He stops, his stomach knotting.

Dorian somehow senses his discomfort, and says, very gently, “Is this the story you weren’t going to tell me?”

Cullen doesn’t look at him, instead staring at his knees, then blinks and says “Yes.”  He pauses a moment and then looks up into Dorian’s face.  “My arse has gone to sleep” he says very seriously.

“Mine too!” Dorian gushes, face breaking out into a smile “That must mean we’ll be friends for life.  It’s probably a thing in elven circles.  You know, if you sit in the same place for so long your arse goes to sleep, you’re fade-bonded.  Or something.” He rises, quite fluidly for someone who has drunk their weight in mead. “Come on, up you pop.”

 

Cullen finally manages to stand, one arm slung over Dorian’s shoulder.  It’s very, very late, and his legs don’t seem to be working properly.  His bladder is working fine though, and is beginning to nag at him rather incessantly.  “Holy Andraste.  I need a piss.”  He staggers, and Dorian catches him.  “Hang on, hang on.  Jus’ let me… alright, there.” He adjusts Cullen’s arm, and looks up at him.  “Oh for… I’m not going to help you with that.  You’re on your own.”

“We’re fade-bonded! Or something!  Jus’ help me to the balcony…”

“Gracious Andraste, please don’ tell me you’re going to…”

“Yeah, I jus’ gotta....”

They make it to the balcony, and Cullen manages to undo the his breeches sufficiently.  He squints one eye, then turns around, suddenly shy. “Don’t look.”

“Who’s looking?”  But Dorian turns around, leans on the door jamb and chuckles.

Cullen is in full flow when he hears a shout from below.  “Ah, Maker” he yelps, taking two steps back from the edge, then crouching so as not to be seen. Dorian bursts into wild peals of laughter, having turned back around after all, then rushing to the edge, yells “ _So_ sorry!  Just a bit of piss, it’ll wash out!  It’s all the rage in the Imperium!”  Then, still cackling wildly, he turns back to Cullen, still crouched on the floor, looking incredibly sheepish.  “You didn’t piss on your own boots, did you?”

“Fuckin’ hell.  Did they see me, do you think?”

Dorian flaps his hand.  “Everyone sees everything here.  Don’t worry, it’s my face they’ll remember.” He doubles over, chuckling.  “Oh Andraste, please jus’ let me hold onto that mental image.”

“It’s not fuckin’ funny.” Cullen stuffs himself back into his breeches and stands, suddenly sober.  He runs a hand through his hair and sighs, then looks at Dorian again.  “Alright” he allows, still a little stern, but smiling now “It’s a bit funny.”

They decide that it’s a lot safer back in the alcove after all.  Dorian goes to work with his chalk again, and writes what he considers a rather witty poem about Cullen’s little mishap.  Cullen watches him write it, and although he frowns, he actually feels quite honoured.  Not perhaps for the poem so much, as the feeling that although Dorian seems to know how alone he is here, how tenuous his position is and how much he is mistrusted, he would still stick his neck out so that he, Cullen, could save face.  “So… this might have been a good idea after all” he mutters to himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> You know what, I cracked myself up writing that. Hope you enjoyed it too. And sorry (kinda) for Cullen giggling, there was literally no other word to describe what he's doing in my head.


End file.
